JBoss just
wrapped up it's work on JBoss Tools 3.1 with a final release. The umbrella project includes Eclipse plugins for JBoss AS, Hibernate, Drools, jBPM, JSF, (X)HTML, Seam, Smooks, JBoss ESB, JBoss Portal, and more. JBoss Tools 3.1 will require installation of Eclipse 3.5 (Galileo). Updates for Hibernate, Maven, and SOA tooling plugins are some of the most notable additions to JBoss Tools 3.1. This is also the first version to support CDI (Context and Dependency Injection).

Newly Supported in JBoss Tools 3.1

JBoss Enterprise Application Platform (EAP)

Enterprise SOA Platform 5

JBoss AS 5.x and 6 M1

JBoss Portal (Now GateIn) and the Enterprise Portal Platform (EPP)

JSF 2.0

Seam 2.2

Hibernate 3.3.2

CDI

m2eclipse integration with Maven

CDICDI annotations are now supported in JBoss Tools 3.1, allowing CDI utilization on any Eclipse Java project. Enabling CDI is as simple as going to the Configure menu and checking the box for CDI. Code completion for @Named components along with the code completion, refactoring, and open-on navigation that was done for Seam also applies to CDI components. In addition to the nice code completion for @Named beans, you can also
easily navigate to @Injection sites using Ctrl+Click or by searching for all occurrences where named beans are used. If you enable validation, the project will check for errors in your CDI constructs and give instant feedback. Methods refactoring on CDI beans will be reflected in Eclipse expressions.

HibernateThe hbm.xml wizard and JPA Annotation Generation refactoring feature both now share the same UI. This enables a preview of the files that will be generated in order to create the hbm.xml file. You can also specify how deeply the wizard should follow associations when selecting classes/packages. Hibernate tooling now works with connections configured in DTP and Eclipse Dali, which makes it easier to share connection settings.

MavenThe JBoss Tools Maven integration will configure support for Maven, JSF, and Portal development in the IDE. Maven users can now import their projects using m2eclipse 0.10.0.

JSFJBoss Tools 3.1 supports JSF 2.0 as well as 1.0 with facelets. New features in JSF 2 include composite components and resource look ups in the visual page editor and (X)HTML code completion. In JSF editing, you won't need to type the namespace to gain code completion within the namespace. For example, code that completes on <out will instead show you all the <h:output* tags. You also don't have to type #{ to get EL code completions in attributes.

SOABPEL support via
Riftsaw has been added along with ESB projects, jbpm4, Drools 5, and Smooks. The editor for Smooks has been upgraded and other SOA editors can now interoperate. For JBoss ESB, there's a new ESB Action Wizard and the ESB editor now has direct links for action creation, which allows easier construction of custom actions.

To install JBoss tools 3.1 you can use the remote
update site or download the update site zip from the main
Downloads page. Either way, you can pick and choose your plugins and features. For the entire list of new features by release, you can view the JBoss Tools
"News and Noteworthy" page.